Many computing and electronic devices access the Internet or other resources through wireless networks, which are typically provided and administered by an access point or base station. As data consumption levels of device users increase, device manufacturers and network architects continue to develop new generations of networking equipment and communication schemes capable of supporting higher levels of data consumption. For example, some devices and access points can communicate large amounts of data by using a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) scheme in which data is communicated via multiple transmit and multiple receive antennas.
These advanced communication schemes, however, often require additional hardware and use more computational resources to process, encode, and communicate multiple streams of data. Aside from monetary costs associated with the additional hardware, the load on computational resources of a device can also increase heat generation and power consumption. For a mobile device with limited form factor and battery capacity, these increases can result in thermal issues, reduced performance, or shorter device run-times.